An endurance swimmer is attempting a record-breaking swim across an Antarctic lake to raise awareness of climate change and the need to protect the ocean from overfishing. Lewis Pugh left his base camp in east Antarctica yesterday to walk three hours across the ice to a “supraglacial” lake, formed by melting water collecting in depressions on the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet. He planned to abseil 70m down ice walls to the lake, strip off and spend about 20 minutes swimming 1km along it. The water is about 0C but he said that the most challenging part would be the wind chill of minus 20C which would blast his arms each time he lifted them out of the water during a stroke. Pugh, the UN patron of the oceans, wants to draw attention to the melting of the Antarctic ice sheetA recent…

Source: The Times January 23, 2020 12:05 UTC